The U.S. Battleship USS New York (BB-34) anchored in the Hudson River, circa 1918. The Hospital ship USS Solace (AH-2) is seen in the background. A seaplane flies low over the river, past the ships. Also seen are the battleships USS Pennsylvania (BB-38 ) and USS Utah (BB-31). (World War i; World War 1; WWI; WW1)
America in the World War 1 years, before and during the U.S. involvement in the war. View of Woodrow Wilson in academic robe and cap, as President of Princeton University. Steel mill with stacks belching smoke. Workers tap an open hearth furnace in steel mill. Children on a city street dancing and being sprayed with a fire hose to keep cool in summer. Boy hopping over the backs of his friends. Boys seated on a bench. Scenes from early motion pictures, interposed with images of Uncle Sam from Army recruiting poster: They are rapid montage comedy and stunt scenes, including Keystone Cops chasing fugitive; cars racing, gangster shootouts from cars; automobile hijinks; men raising barrier at railroad level crossing while a woman is left dangling from the raised crossing gate; car races and crosses railroad track in front of rapidly approaching locomotive; comic car chase down; line of 3 open top cars racing over an edge into a deep ditch, a motorcycle taking flight off of a road and into a river; a man waving warning flag frantically at a blasting site; The Cunard Ocean Liner ship, RMS Lusitania, underway; Newspaper front page about torpedoing of the Lusitania. American soldiers boarding troop ship for France in World War 1; View of the troop ship deck filled with U.S. soldiers. Various scenes of U.S. troops in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France during World War I: amid war torn ruins and destroyed buildings in France; firing French 75s and heavier artillery; soldiers charging across no-man's land; French and American soldiers caring for wounded behind the lines and in trenches of the battlefields; soldiers placing helmets and identification cards of fallen soldiers on rifles that are inverted, bayonet into ground.
Armistice ends hostilities of World War I. German troops surrender and large groups of Germans marching. American flag hoisted to symbolize Allied victory. American troops leave the war zone. People all over the world celebrate the end of war. People gather in New York to celebrate the end of World War I, smiling and waving happily.
Scenes in Lyndhurst, New Jersey after explosion in the Canadian Car and Foundry Company in Kingsland (in Meadowlands of New Jersey) during World War 1. The company built shells for shipment to Russia in World War I. Over 500,000 shells were destroyed in the blast and fire, bombarding the surrounding areas in Kingsland - Lyndhurst. Black smoke rising in the distance, at night, seen from the coast. Close views of industrial buildings and homes on fire. Night views of homes and buildings engulfed in flames. People walk through smoking wreckage afterwards and pick through debris. Devastation covers area flattened by explosion and fire. Twisted railroad tracks covered by debris. A pile of munitions shells in a heap in the burned out shell of a building. View of the D.L.&W (Delaware, Lackawanna & Western) Railroad Shops building at Kingsland (now Lyndhurst), with DL&W train car 605 parked in front. Railroad Shops building is pitted with holes and broken glass from 3-inch shell bombardment. Two men inspect a damaged railroad car with broken glass and a 3-inch shell embedded in the side of the car. A heavily damaged residential house with holes and blown-out windows, and a shell embedded in the front door. Citizens pick through wreckage in front of a building where only cement pilings remain. Scene shifts to Perth Amboy area, October 1918. View of displaced families made homeless by the T.A. Gillespie Shell Loading Plant explosion (Morgan Depot Explosion; largest munitions factory in the world). Refugees sit in a town square. Men, women, and children among the refugees. An Army soldier and Navy sailor seen near refugees as they eat and drink. View of Smith Street in Perth Amboy with shops damaged by the blast. Under Martial Law, U.S. Army troops patrol with rifles to prevent looting. Pedestrians and a streetcar pass. Sign along sidewalk for entrance to Michaels & Co. at 178 Smith Street. (Suspected cause of incidents: Gillespie - worker error; Kingsland - sabotage as in the 1916 Black Tom explosion.)
Tsianina Redfeather (also known as Tsianina Blackstone), a famous Creek-Cherokee Native American Indian mezzo-soprano, plays the Hawaiian guitar and sings for U.S. soldiers in YMCA- sponsored entertainment for the troops in a canteen, 1917-1918, during World War 1. (Historic note: While sailing to Europe in 1918 as a member of the American Expeditionary Forces, her vessel, the HMS Carmania, was struck by a torpedo. She continued the journey, entertained thousands of troops, and received a commendation for her service. Her interest in entertaining the troops, according to her autobiography, rested in the fact that so many American Indian soldiers were fighting overseas-- around 17,000. After her return to the U.S. her career continued to escalate. This clip perhaps represents the only surviving footage of this truly remarkable individual.)
Experiments with chlorine gas for influenza immunizations in United States. A World War I tank sprays gas in a field. View of American soldiers during 1917 to 1918 period of World War I, in a trench, wearing gas masks, and firing rifles at enemy positions. Post war tests on use of Chlorine gas to control the flu (emerging from 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic), inspired by low rate of influenza among United States soldiers exposed to chlorine gas during the war. Man enters a chlorine chamber at the Chemical Warfare Service. A chart on the wall showing results on symptoms after exposure in chlorine chamber. A woman in 1920s hat carrying a tissue is treated with chlorine gas. A testing apparatus on a table. Group of patients sit together in a chlorine chamber being exposed to the chlorine gas. A business man in a suit receives a portable chlorine gas treatment in his office as he is too busy to visit the chlorine chamber.